BATON ROUGE – LSU’s 21 varsity sports teams continue to thrive in the classroom as the Tigers showed improvement over last year in all but one sport in the annual Academic Progress Rates (APR) released by the NCAA on Wednesday.

The APR ratings released by the NCAA are part of the organization’s continuing academic reform efforts.

LSU’s success in the annual APR Report comes on the heels of the school’s Graduation Success Rate (GSR) report last November that revealed an all-time high of 88% for the Tigers.

Women’s basketball, which recently reached the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in six years under head coach Nikki Caldwell, had the biggest improvement of all LSU teams, jumping 26 points from 949 to 975.

The Tiger football program had an 18-point bounce, going from a 941 a year ago to a current mark of 959.

In all, 16 of LSU’s 21 teams scored at least a 975 with 11 of those reaching the 990-mark or better. LSU had five sports score a perfect 1000 – men’s cross country, men’s and women’s tennis, women’s golf and beach volleyball.

The APR is a point system based on scholarship athletes’ eligibility and retention for a pre-determined time period. This year’s report is for the four-year period beginning in the fall of 2012. Points are awarded each semester for academic eligibility and retention, with two points possible per semester per student-athlete.

NCAA sports falling below the established cutoff point of 930 are subject to penalties including scholarship reductions. A perfect APR score is 1000.